If corporations paid taxes on gross receipts, they would all have to merge into super-giant corporations, because super-giant corporations would then be able to avoid taxes by transferring good between branches without payment.

For instance, one auto company would buy up all of its suppliers, so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes on steel, rubber, wheels, rims, whatever. Then all the other auto companies would have to do the same, to keep their prices as low.

Eventually you'd have monster corporations, each owning hundreds of what we would consider giant corporations. These monster corporations would have so much political power that they would basically run the country.

Oops. Japan does tax corporations on net receipts. The keiretsu system began hundreds of years before the current tax system was created anyways, so I couldn't use it as an example even if it were true.

(Some assets can be transferred between 100% owned subsidiaries without paying tax on them in Japan. Theoretically, I think that doesn't provide a tax advantage to monster corporations. In practice, it probably does.)